There currently is an "underground" market for custom record albums stored on audio tapes. These custom albums are made, for example, using dual cassette tape decks from albums borrowed from others, with selected songs copies onto a custom compiled tape. They require a fair amount of time to assemble, and represent lost revenue to the record companies, since unauthorized copies of property subject to royalties are made. With the advent of CD-ROM storage media, copies can no longer easily be made.
The system described herein will allow rapid creation of customized CD-ROM recordings, with proper royalty payments, and thus should greatly expand a newly emerging market for customized audio products. These CD-ROM customized albums can be created at a central location from remote inputs, or at distributed locations (such as record stores) from a central database or distributed databases, using high-speed CD-write devices.
It should be noted that the audio information is not necessarily constrained to music, and can encompass additional areas suitable for customization, including currently existing markets for personal self-improvement, business lectures, and other forms of audio data marketed to the public. As indicated in the Abstract, Background and Claims segments of the application, still-video or visual text information may also be included with the traditional music audio data, including textual data on recording artists, still photos of the artists and graphics for custom album production. For other custom audio products, such as customized business lectures, scientific material, and integration of exerpts from books and/or speeches, still-visual data (such as text, graphs, drawings and/or photos) may be included for off-line publication and use while listening to the audio information, or included in a multi-media, integrated CD-ROM playable, for example, on current personal computer systems.